“Basically what it does is create a community medical services program which allows hospitals, EMS providers and ambulance service providers to provide non-emergency services outside of the hospital setting, outside of a clinic setting in the patient's home,” Senator and bill co-author Terry Moulton said.

Moulton added that the community paramedicine program would greatly decrease health care costs.

“You look at your most common repeat customers that we have that we might go out to a couple of times a week and visit them for an intoxication, drug use, people who are just not taking care of themselves and then we take them to the hospital,” Eau Claire Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Jon Schultz said. “If we identify them, then we can go out and help them with home health care or a county health problem or whatever and develop a care plan to keep them and make them healthier.”

The bill will now be presented to the Department of Health Services so they can write specific rules and determine if paramedics need special training for the program.

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